Walmart Marketing Strategy Essay

Wal-Mart is a brand that is well known around the world, especially in the USA. It has gradually developed into the largest retailer in the world. Wal-Mart’s globalization efforts have been happening rapidly. But have they been successful in all aspects of their international expansion or not? This is the main thought that is going to be discussed in this essay. The questions I will be looking at are based on a case called “Wal-Mart takes on the world” from the book of International Business The Challenge of Global Competition eleventh edition – Ball, McCulloch, Geringer, Minor, and McNett. Questions are the following:

As the world’s largest retail store in the world, Walmart wants to be in every market that they can be prosperous in. They know they rule the United States market, so why not try to expand overseas and dominate those markets as well. Now that they have reached limits on expansion here in the U.S., the next step was to test the water in other nations. As they began to go international, there were many critics saying they will never make it because their business practices and culture wouldn’t work in other countries. Yet the company’s globalization efforts progressed at a rapid pace. Its more than 4,263 international retail units employ more than 660,000

1) Should Wal-Mart be expected to protect small businesses in the communities within which it operates?

The purpose of this business report is to gain familiarity with Wal-Mart and to learn about the different aspects that make Wal-Mart a successful company. This report gives an in-depth analysis of the company history, services and products provided, the company philosophy, business methods, organizational structure, and financial and competitive analysis.

In 1950, former J.C. Penny employee, Sam Walton opened Walton’s Five and Dime in Bentonville, Arkansas. By 1965, in the same small town Walton would open the first Walmart store unknowing that his investment would become the world’s largest retailer. By keeping sales prices low Walton was able to get ahead of the competition and successfully opened an additional store within the same year. Walton’s success continued and by 1967 his chain of stores had grown to 24 locations, and was bringing in about $12.6 million dollars in sales annually.

Walmart is known throughout the entire world as one of the most popular chain department stores. Actually, most have probably visited a Walmart store in the past week. Though Walmart stores seem to be a normal part of life the average person more than likely has little knowledge that pertains to Walmart’s success and business culture. This paper will guide one through the history of the organization, why Walmart is successful, what could threaten or open new opportunities, and how might they hold a competitive advantage.

Cost Leadership is Walmart’s generic strategy. Walmart’s focus is on maintaining low prices of goods and services. Walmart is known for low prices, which is the main selling point of the business. The company keeps its prices low through cost reduction in operations.

to see where the company is now with the use of a brief Swot analysis.

The development of the Internet and more specifically the business website has seen brand recognition by consumers escalate to never before seen heights. Because of this brand recognition, it has become important for businesses to design their websites to reflect their overall marketing strategies. This is especially important in the retail world. All retail businesses have a similar overall marketing strategy of generating sales and retaining the customer for future sales. Most of the retail giants still greatly rely on the success of their brick and mortar stores to turn a profit. However, internet sales for these brick and mortar stores have increasingly risen over the last few years to compete with the retail stores like Amazon that are strictly internet based businesses. Brick and mortar retail stores, such as Walmart, Target, Kmart, and Nordstrom, have each designed their websites to reflect the overall retail marketing strategy as well as the individual marketing strategies that have made their brick and mortar businesses successful.

 Illustrates low prices and at the same time, not portray a cheap image to consumer.

Wal-Mart is a world-wide active American retail trade company and currently the largest retail company in the world. Beginning in 1962, Wal-Mart has made the transition from a small firm in Arkansas to the largest employer with 3, 800 store units in the United States with record revenues today. But nevertheless, since Wal-Mart launched its online branch, it had to suffer from substantial setbacks from competitors such as Amazon.com or Ebay.

In this paper, I have researched to find out how this grant empire has become and remain so successful. I found out that one of the reasons is because it has been able to maintain the goals and standards that its owner, Mr. Sam Walton has built it upon. Even after his death, Wal-Mart continues to expand and grow in other countries. Wal-Mart is considered one of the top ten global companies today. Mr. Walton’s main goal was to sell products at a low price so that people could live a better life. Another reason is because Wal-Mart uses certain market mix strategies such as the four P”. These strategies, price, promotion, product and place.

Wal-Marts venture into South Korea is yet another example of a company attempting to duplicate its strategies and business model unsuccessfully. Wal-Mart didn’t consider how the vast differences in culture could affect their survival and ultimately let their complacency, conservatism and conceit get in the way. Their continued losses forced them to withdraw their investment after failing to adapt to the environment, the culture and customer needs. Wal-Mart should have adjusted their leadership style to be able to transcend context as well as engage in cultural sensitivity by localising their business to suit consumer preferences. More knowledge of the environment and competition could have

How can Homeplus address the current conflict against Korea’s small store owners while continuously developing the company’s economic growth and performance?

Bonini, S. M., Mendoca, L. T., & Oppenheim, J. M. (2006). When Social Issues become strategic. McKinsey Quarterly, 20-32.